The 12 Fastest-Growing Big ’Burbs in Florida

Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Orlando are locked in a close contest for bragging rights when it comes to the fastest-growing big suburbs in Florida. But at the finish line, Miami-Fort Lauderdale wins by a nose — actually, a few thousand noses.

A LawnStarter review of newly released population data from the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research shows the Miami-Florida metro area lays claim to six of the state’s 12 fastest-growing big suburbs from 2010 to 2015, while the Orlando metro area boasts five. Suburbs in the state’s other major metro areas — namely Tampa-St. Petersburg and Jacksonville — don’t appear in the top 12.

Not surprisingly, Miami-Fort Lauderdale gained more residents, about 66,000, than any other metro area in the country from 2013 to 2014, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Orlando ranked No. 2, picking up about 50,000 residents during the one-year span.

Migration Magnets

To come up with our ranking of the 12 fastest-growing big suburbs in Florida, we looked only at places with at least 10,000 residents in 2015 that are situated in federally designated metro areas. We eliminated suburbs that grew mostly due to big annexations of land with homes — but not undeveloped residential or commercial parcels — between 2010 and 2015.

Rich Doty, a demographer with the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, says the population spike among the fastest-growing suburbs can be attributed mainly to people relocating to Florida from other states.

“Growth in Florida from 2014 to 2015 was higher than in prior years largely due to improvements in our economy,” Doty says. “Jobs attracted many people, and retirees were able to sell their homes in Northern states for a better price than in prior years.”

Here is LawnStarter’s ranking of the 12 fastest-growing big suburbs in Florida from 2010 to 2015.